Answer
As-Salaamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Bararkatuhum,
My dear sister, if there ever was a good, valid reason for divorce, you have it!
From your question, it seems that you have no children with this man. That is good. Get out of this marriage as fast as you can before you have children. This is not a “marriage” in substance. It is misery. Marriage is love and mercy according to Allah’s word in his book. Your marriage is anything but!
There is no injunction in Islam against divorce. Divorce is completely lawful. Divorce was even common in the time of the Prophet (saw). There is an ayah in the Quran that talks about getting divorced three times to the same person, then marrying another person and then divorcing him and then marrying the first person again. that is four divorces. This ayah would not exist if the people—the best Muslims the world has ever known—did not get divorced, a lot.
That said, we are not supposed to run to divorce as our first line of defense when our marriages are not working. We are supposed to try to fix them, first. But after then, if they prove unfixable, you have ever right – you even have a duty to yourself – to divorce. My God—you have suffered enough! There is nothing wrong with getting a divorce when it is the “right” thing to do; it is healthy in that case!
The Christians (in the Bible—which is an altered book (altered from the Revelation from Allah) don’t allow divorce and it that prohibition has caused tons of misery and sin in the Western world because our human nature to need physical companionship with someone for whom we “feel” something is as fundamental to our human needs as food and water is. The only difference is that without food and water we physically die, without love and mercy we emotionally die—unless Allah helps us survive it.
Our need for companionship is written into our very natures: Allah says He created us in pairs. Allah alone is “One”, we are not one. We manifest ourselves through the process of interaction. We grow through the process of interaction—reflection back to us of what our behavior feels like and looks like to others—because we do not have that perspective on our own behavior – we need each other to become alive, beyond breathing.
The way Allah provided for us to do this in a safe way (which is the way we need for us to feel free to express ourselves) is in family blood but mostly in marriage. Your marriage provides no such thing to you! Please do not think for a minute that you are doing something “wrong” to want or to get a divorce.
The Prophet (saw) had a wife that he was going to divorce because he lost his lust (not love) for her. She asked him to keep her one but not to give her a night. He agreed. In other words, if divorce were unlawful or even awful, our messenger (saw) would not have pursued that path.
Please put divorce in a different light in your mind. It is not the first thing we turn to when problems arise but it is the thing we turn to when the problems are abusive or so bad that they are intolerable or the couple is getting nothing out of the marriage anymore. That is marriage material or, as in your case, they are getting nothing out of the marriage at all, marriage material or otherwise.
May Allah Make it easy for you!
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